In linguistics, the notion of ‘distance’ has already been employed in cognitive and functional approaches, and has proven as a fruitful tool for the description of verbal and nominal categories, particularly in the area of Balkan linguistics.

However, its use is by no means consistent. On the one hand various linguistic phenomena are described in terms of ‘distance’; on the other hand, the notion itself is being related to different concepts. In its original sense, ‘distance’ refers to a ‘gap’ between two spatially separated points (Dancyngier & Vandelanotte 2009). This spatial concept, combined with a deictic component, is transferred to other mental and linguistic concepts, whereby the speaker serves as a point of reference.

The central question of the conference is: What is the common denominator for the various uses of this notion, based on which a semantic category ‘distance’ can be defined and how is this category realised in language?